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THE CHISWELL WALLED GARDEN
Photos from the project
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THE CHISWELL WALLED GARDEN
Location: Dorset
THE CHISWELL WALLED GARDEN
A Doorstep Green - one of the Countryside Agency's Projects.
"Of his bones are coral made: those are pearls that were his eyes;”
These lines from Shakespeare's The Tempest are inscribed on a Doorstep Green sign in Chiswell on the Isle of Portland, Dorset. It is a dedication to the memory of the 28 people who died in the Great Storm which swept over the Chesil Beach in 1824, destroying more than100 houses and causing a long slow decay to this coastal community. In 2003, local people formed a Trust, and with the help of the Countryside Agency, acquired one of these derelict sites just in time to save it from municipal housing.
The Chiswell Walled Garden is one of the smallest Doorstep Greens in the South West, less than half an acre. But it is precious to a community which has so little, no community centre and no real stake in the regeneration process. In 2001, what had been a large greenfield site, the old village common, was allowed to go to a housing corporation for development. The residents in Chiswell, in despair at losing their open space, asked the Doorstep Green advisors to help find another site in the village suitable for green space. The two advisors from Bristol were wonderfully supportive; they encouraged the group to apply to the Council for a long lease on a walled compound near the beach.
The local authority was bemused…”a dark gloomy place, hardly the site for a Green…” they demurred. That was true. Once the boatyard had cleared out their lumber, a reinforced concrete air-raid shelter and a large concrete bunker appeared at one end, and at the other were the remains of 1960's public lavatories. Between them were several alternating layers of concrete and tarmacadam. Nonethess, the three to four metre high walls were well built of Portland stone and people began to realise that the gloom was man-made and not intrinsic to the site.
The removal of all concrete began in September 2004. Today the 350 square metres of walling has been repaired and re-pointed with lime mortar: The South West Regional Development Agency has donated a substantial amount of new Portland stone paving to the courtyard area and the compound is light, airy, full of sun and a haven for small birds and people sitting in the sun and meeting their neighbours, sometimes for the first time. Eventually a tiny wattle & daub garden shed to house electricity and water will be built close to the courtyard entrance so that people can have community events and parties.
But the journey to get to this stage had been rocky. As soon as the unforgiving render was removed from the north end where the lavatories had once been (smelly cottages we were informed by old timers) everybody got a shock. One wall was comprised of ashlar stone with vestiges of doorways and mullioned windows. Research quickly revealed that there had been two fine stone houses on this site. They were dated to the early 17th Century. A watercolour of Chiswell by a well known topographical artist, John Upham, painted in 1804, showed them silhouetted against the beach, smoke drifting from their chimneys. The discovery of this message from the past, though only a ghostly footprint, delighted the community. Photographs were taken, poems written; little boys briefly became archaeologists, abandoning their usual guise of gun-toting terrorist! Everybody was keen to dig up the rubble, soot and compacted sand and find stone hearths, stone paving, stone drains and the other smaller treasures, sherds of glass and pottery and clay pipes. It was at this point that certain members of the Trust came into conflict with the local authority who insisted on partial demolition of the historic wall. It was an unreasonable demand, but the planning authority was inflexible, the negotiations protracted. Finally the management committee had to capitulate otherwise the community would have lost their Green. It was a damaging conflict and trust was lost all around. To further fund the project another grant was applied for and awarded, this time from the Local Heritage Initiative. Even now, volunteers are still carefully digging in the central area where there may have been an outside kitchen. The intention is to spread pea gravel, pebbles found on site and oyster shells over the excavated site so that shingle ridge plants, (sea kale, sea campion, the yellow horned poppy) can colonise those parts where their roots find some depth.
At the south end of the compound a raised bed was formed from the ashlars found on site. The bed is about a metre high and intersected with gravel paths. Chiswell is built on shingle, therefore, in order to grow trees and shrubs, tons of soil had to be imported to the raised beds. Help was at hand in December for supplying the new soil with worms bought on the internet; this came from a class of five year olds from the local Infant's School. Their creative teachers will help them monitor the new garden for the next three years.
In the spring of 2006, the raised bed was planted with briar roses to scale the walls, irises, daisies, cardoons, and different kinds of eryngiums, buddleia and even tomato plants and herbs. One enthusiastic well-wisher gave over a dozen Echium pininana seedlings. Two years previously the committee had consulted a well-known and erudite garden designer whose advice was invaluable. There was a range of plants to try, but essentially the process would be trial and error. The maritime microclimate would dictate the success and be both boon and challenge.
A summer flowering tamarix and two hawthorn trees were planted to provide structure as well as berries for the birds. In the autumn espalier fruit trees will be introduced to grow against the protective stone walls.
But it was a recent small incident which pleased the management committee so very much. One of the fathers from the new housing development nearby brought a small tree in a pot to the garden. It was a Holme Oak. He apologised. He had grown it from an acorn four years earlier and trees do not normally grow in Chiswell…but could we find space for it in the garden? The committee hesitated. We debated whether it was wise to plant such a potentially large tree on this small site. After some research it was discovered that Quercus ilex did grow well on the Island, but it remained a small tree sculpted by wind and sea spray. It was learnt that one such oak was reputed to be over 200 years old. That decided us. This would be the ultimate sustainable element which would ensure the future of the Chiswell Walled Garden. We planted the little tree and it is flourishing.
Margaret Somerville
Chiswell Community Trust - June 2006
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